Forlorn Hope
by Ingram
Summary: As the final battle rages, a space marine captain rallies the forces of the far future for one last assault into the breach.


The line was faltering; morale was crumbling; the will to fight was slipping away. How could it not, when one saw the odds stacked against the few who had come to defy millions, the last hope of a galaxy weighing heavy in their exhausted shoulders. They had come to fight for their very existence, against all odds, but now, at the eleventh hour, with all of creation stacked against them, they were faltering. A heavily armored figure felt the will of his fellows break, and desperate, climbed atop the highest point he could see and roared at the top of his lungs, the heavy banner mounted on the back of his armor marking him as an elite amongst an elite; a captain of the space marines, greatest warriors of the Imperium of Man, holders of the torch of humanity, peerless super soldiers of the darkest times imaginable.

"Brothers!" the captain shouted, humming power sword held high above his head, standing high on the smashed remnant of an Imperator titan. He ignored the flash and pulse of energy beams as they hurtled towards him from the breached walls; it was not simple bravado on his part; a crackling energy field surrounded him, flaring with green fire whenever a bolt slammed into it, giving the captain an aura of fiery light as he looked down at his assembled force,

"Brothers, hear my voice! For forty thousand years we have stood, we have killed and we have fought! The galaxy is our battlefield, and war our comrade!" the captain swept the sword down and surveyed the faces of his army, features grim and set, "With bolter, sword and fire have I waged my war, and you all have waged yours. This is all we know, my brothers, and even the best amongst us has reveled in the slaughter of war. But always, we have fought for something greater, even it was just the next breath of air. And here we stand at the final hour of existence, come to defy fate itself as we have defied every other foe we have faced!"

The captain turned to look at the shattered walls before him, at the hordes of foes within, and he smiled, grimly,

"Are we stand here now, after all these years, and falter?"

He laughed, and looked back down at his comrades; heavy armored space marines, all that was left of a thousand chapters of the _Adeptus Astartes_;White Scars and Black Templars stood shoulder to shoulder with Ultramarines, Salamanders, Iron Snakes and the remnants of a once proud force of humanity.

Imperial Guardsman, equipped with little beyond a lasrifle and raw courage, stood tall and proud as his gaze swept across them; Cadian, Tallarn, Krieg, Catachan, Tanith, thousands of troopers from thousands of worlds, brought together under the emperors banner to stand the line until they died fighting. The bleached and pure faces of Battle Sisters from every temple in the Imperium stood in burnished armor, eyes shining with tears as their world crumbled around them, grimly held flamer and bolter in their power armored hands.

Revealed at last, the grimly silent ranks of the Grey Knights stood in plain sight, their covered faces gazing up at the captain, waiting serenely for whatever comes next, unafraid even as the army broke, supremely confidant that the will of humanity would whether even this storm.

The leering faces of Orks from every clan and warband fixed open the captain, their red eyes entranced by the martial wraith that atop the smashed war machine; Blood Axes, Bad Moonz, Snake Bites, Goffs, Evil Sunz, Freebooterz and renegades had all come to fight, as they always would, until the last green skin fell in glorious battle.

The arrogant Eldar stood, humble at last, with the others, their colorful armor covered with blood, bracken and filth, their farseer's power broken, their warriors here to fight with only the same distant longing to survive that held the others in its grasp, determined to fight destiny itself with every inch of their skill.

Their dark cousins were here as well; this was one fight not even they could duck. The Dark Eldar saw the odds stacked against them and knew that to fall here was to fall forever; not even the best of their homunculi could bring them back from this end. But still they stood, depraved pirates come to fight the good fight.

Standing in a grim silence that even the grey knights would envy, the metal skeletons of the Necron legions stood behind their tomb lords, here to stand alongside the hated flesh creatures. Their trickster gods had been silent of late, leaving their soulless killing machines to make their own way, and the lords, with the last scraps of their free will had come to stand at the end times.

The curious helms of the Tau stood out among the crowd of drab soldiers, their heavy plasma rifles held tight in their hands as they watched the captain; the ethereals had disappeared, leaving the ranks of the Tau Empire to fend for themselves, and the fire warriors had gradually drifted to stand beside the others; not even their powerful weapons and technology could win the day alone.

Snarling and roaring, a living wall of Tyranids swarmed around the others, mandibles clacking, venom dripping, living weapons held high. No one knew why the great devourer had come here, or why they had begun to fight alongside the others. Perhaps the great hive mind recognized a dire threat, and chose to ally itself with the others. Perhaps the Tyranids had chosen for themselves, their Tyrants and Hive Lords picking the best spot to sell their lives before the end.

The captain's eyes hardened as he took in the arrayed forces of the traitor legions; Emperors Children, Word Bearers, Night Lords, Thousand Sons, World Eaters and all the others, traitors to the Emperor who now once again fought beside their erstwhile brethren, as they had millennia before. They had given their souls to their dark gods, but not even they could save them from the coming storm, and thus the favored sons of chaos stood with their arch enemies, preparing to sell their lives as dearly as they could.

Amongst the Chaos marines, mighty daemons prowled, come pouring from the warp for one last battle, not for pleasure, not for sacrifice, but for existence. The forces behind those shattered walls had nearly wiped them from the warp itself, and the daemons had reacted like any other creatures whose home was threatened. They fought back.

No one could say when this insane alliance had been forged.

No one could say when human and ork had first fought side by side against the forces that had ripped through reality to wipe the universe from existence.

None were sure when traitor and loyalist had first stood side by side to save a world's populace from extermination.

Nor could they say when Dark Eldar and Soritas had spilled the blood of the foe, purest white and darkest night fighting to save the very galaxy they inhabited.

Or when Eldar, Necron and Daemon had stood defiant, back to back, ageless killers fighting against the new threat.

Or the moment when the ranks of fire warriors had unleashed a wall of fire to cover the advance of the hive fleets.

But unite they had, by twos and threes, until the galaxy stood defiant against the enemy who had come to kill them all.

A year ago, every being in the galaxy had heard a voice in their head;

_You have been judged. _

_You are a danger to us all. _

_You will __**die**__._

And then the attacks had started.

Massively powerful ships had poured into the galaxy, spitting fire at world after world, ground troops rounded up populations for the slaughter, all to protect the universe at large from the denizens of the dark galaxy. Orks and humans, Daemons and Eldar, all were to die. The Universal Alliance, as the killers called themselves, had passed judgment without giving the accused a chance to defend itself. The ingabithats of this glaxy were a threat, as dire as could be imagined, and if their endless war spilled beyong their confines and spread out across the distant stars, it would be the end of billions of righ and good creatures. So the threat was to be removed.

They had sent overwhelming forces, knowing that their power would be enough to wipe the galaxy clean, that the fractured, crumbling empires of the 42nd Millienium couldn't stand against them.

Until they had, in deepest desperation, stopped fighting each other and fought the aliens instead. The Warbosses had railed against such un-Orky behavior, the Inquisition and Ecclesiarchy had screamed heresy until their faces were red, the Chaos Sorcerers had ranted and slaughtered while the Farseers spoke about inferior races. In the end, they had died and survival instinct took over, and it led to the unthinkable; the war stopped, and then began anew, each faction standing in line against the foe, until they'd been driven back to a single world. And the invaders had unleashed their greatest weapon; a weapon so heinous that it would wipe this galaxy itself out of existence, as if it had never been. Their would be no one to tell the tale of the clever Eldrad Uthan, the valorous Blood Angels or the mighty Gorgutz 'Edhunta.

They would simply cease once the weapon was charged and unleashed. Millennia of tales, of history, of loss, love and glorious wonder would disappear. The sacrifices and daths of untold thousands, from the great betrayal of the Horus heresy to the hell of the arenas of Cammoragh, would disappear as if they had never been. The heroic deeds of the galaxy, from the last stand of a platoon of Imperial guardsman during the Sabbat Worlds crusade to Wazdakka Gutsmek ramping his chopper off a cliff and into the cockpit of an Imperial titan, would count for nothing.

A galaxy of hatred and fear, of death and despair, standing defiant to the last, the forces of the dark millennia rushing to battle, one last time, to save the simple fact of their existence from being wiped out, without even a whisper to mark their passing.

"We may stay here, and look each other in the eye, and remember the past, when we spilled each others blood in oceans. And we will die where we stand, side by side, as we might have done from the beginning. Our worlds have burned, our peoples have died, for far too long. Perhaps these aliens have it right; perhaps we need to be purged. Perhaps this galaxy and every being inside of it need to be _expunged_ lest we upset the delicate sensibilities of others any longer."

A short ripple of laughter came form the armies, at least, those that had the capacity for humor.

"But I say no. No, we will not go quietly. We will stand defiant to the end, thought our spirits and bodies break. We are the only forces that made it through the barrage shields the surface of this world, and now our galaxies hopes rest with us, brothers. We are all that's left, and I say we make our lives count for something."

The captain turned and surveyed the walls one last time; broken they may be, but they still bristled with firepower. Within lay the psychic energy beacon that powered the galaxy killer. The armies would either succeed here, or the galaxy would die. Everyone here knew that, and they knew that they would most likely not survive the assault even if they succeeded.

"We have beaten these fools back to their final stronghold in _our_ galaxy, and I say we show them the door before they overstay their welcome. I kneel before no one, not these insane butchers, not the gods above, and not even death itself. Who's with me?" The captain roared, leaping off the titan, leaving a crater when he hit the ground before charging full tilt at the fortress before him.

No one followed.

They stood, immobile for a long moment, until a lone commissar climbed from the trenches of the Imperial and camouflage cape billowing behind him, power sword held high,  
>"<em>Soldiers of the Dark Galaxy…" <em> he started to shout,

"…_do you want to live forever?"_ another commissar finished, leading a Valhallan regiment into the attack, winking as he passed the first. He was followed by the an army of guardsman, Baneblades, Titans, Valkyries, every war machine in the Imperiums arsena,l rushing to battle.

"The though had crossed my mind, yes." Asdrubael Vect muttered from atop his Raider, before leading his lighting fast legions forward.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" The undying cry was taken up by the orks, loud enough to make ears bleed, as the green tide swept forward on a ramshackle array of stompas, deff coptas, trukks and iron shod boots.

"For the Emperor!" Soritas and Space marine shouted, before charging forward with bolter and sword ready for the fight; except for one chapter of bright yellow armored Astartes, who let loose with an insane stream of profanity before running forth at breakneck speed waving an array of crude power-weapons.

Amongst the ranks of the Chaos Marines, a hulking World Eater spat out a half smoked cigar and sloshed a shot of tequila into the grills of his helmet before shouting

"BLOOD FO THE BLOOD GOD!" and charging forth, chain-axe held high, followed by the others, united with their brothers one final time.

The Necrons let loose with wailing cry that seemed to come from the very depths of the underworld before striding forth, implacable incarnations of death in metal form, while the tyranids roared in wild fury as they charged, skittering across the ground as they ran to clean they biomass of their foe from the galaxy.

The wall of defenses opened up, a curtain of death coming down on the last charge of the Dark Galaxy. None would have survived.

Until the curtain went up in flames.

The incoming projectiles began to evaporate in flashes of multi-colored fires, and pillars of light erupted in front of the charging armies, blinding them and their foes alike.

Blinking away the spots that filled his vision, the space marine captain panicked for a moment, convinced he was dead.

For standing before him was a magnificent, glowing figure glad in bright gold armor.

"My Emperor?" the captain asked.

"Yes my son." The God Emperor of Mankind answered, smiling like a proud father as he locked gazes with the captain.

"Wha…wh…"

"We have come to fight with our children."

"We?" the captain asked,

The Emperor pointed.

Two leviathan Orks stood nearby, brandishing huge axes and massive automatic weapons the size of Volcano cannons.

A quartet of pure evil spread out, each one picking a legion of traitor marines to stand with. The captain blanched as he realized just who they were. Khorne high fived Kharne the Betrayer and stood with the World Eaters, Tzeentch exchanged meaningful glances with a Thousand Sons sorcerer, Nurgle embreaced his children while Slaanesh…did things.

The Necrons stoically glared back as the C'tan danced before them, trickster gods with an appetite for souls. More than a few tomb lords made a mental note to test their gauss weapons on them if they survived the coming fight.

Before the Eldar, a grimly silent pantheon began to form, ready to fight for their children once again.

"Now, I believe we were in the midst of a heroic, charge?" the Emperor asked, getting the captains attention again.

"I…yes my lord."

"Well than, far be it for me to stand in your way. Shall we kick some ass, captain?"

The captain gaped, before a Space Wolf behind him shouted,

"Oh _frak _yes!"

The armies charged once again.

There were no survivors.


End file.
